Pedestrian traffic as well as automobile traffic makes use of intersections in urban and suburban streets. As pedestrians travel from one location in a city to another, they are faced with many intersections which must be crossed. In order to assist the pedestrians in crossing safely, the familiar "WALK", "DON'T WALK" signs are linked to standard motor-traffic controls. This allows pedestrians to, ideally, cross with, rather than against, the flow of automobile traffic. While these controls, i.e. "WALK", "DON'T WALK" signs, warn pedestrian traffic of the safest opportunity to cross the intersection, they do not prevent a pedestrian from crossing against the light, i.e. entering the intersection when oncoming traffic has a "green light".
Also many urban areas and resort areas that have an especially heavy flow of pedestrian traffic have non-intersection cross-walks, i.e. cross-walks between intersections in which pedestrians always have the right of way. There are presently no warning light systems that warn oncoming traffic that a pedestrian is attempting to cross against the light or has entered a non-intersection cross-walk and is presently in the cross-walk. This need is most acute during periods of poor visibility when an alert driver would experience difficulty in spotting pedestrians.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a cross-walk warning light system that is able to detect when a pedestrian has entered the cross-walk and accordingly activate lights that warn oncoming traffic of the presence of a pedestrian in the cross-walk.
It is another object of this invention to provide a cross-walk warning light system that provides warning lights that are highly visible to oncoming traffic during periods of poor visibility, such as fog or inclement weather.
Other objects and advantages over the prior art will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading the detailed description together with the drawings as described as follows.